


Sound, Sickness, and Sleep

by acme146



Series: Fading Scars [23]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Training Days, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Harry is a Good Friend, Hurt/Comfort, Muggle Colds, Sickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 14:32:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12937287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acme146/pseuds/acme146
Summary: On a break from Auror training, Ron gets sick. Harry takes care of him with the help of a memory.Takes place early in the Fading Scars universe.





	Sound, Sickness, and Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> I am not a Muggle doctor or a witch doctor (ooh, ee, ooh ah ah), and all of this is made up.   
> For annegirlblythe, who prompted sick!Ron and Harry taking care of him.

Harry had never lived with only Ron.

            At Hogwarts, there were the three other boys, and looking for Horcruxes brought Hermione into the tent. Even when they shared a room at the Burrow, Mrs. Weasley frequently came in to tidy up.

            So it was certainly an adjustment, having just Ron with him in Grimmauld Place.

            By unspoken agreement, they shared a room. While Kreacher had sorted out all the rooms, their old room still felt the most lived in. Ron put up Chudley Cannons posters on his side, and Harry put up a painting Luna gave him of a wide field under a sky full of stars. She’d insisted on it right before she left for her first trip to the Amazon. The picture glowed in the dark, and it made Harry feel very much at peace.

            Auror training took up a lot of their time, and they were really only home early mornings and late nights. Even then there was homework and talking to family and friends, chatting with their respective girlfriends, and trying to sleep without nightmares. The last led to quick late night conversations, and sometimes they would both give up on sleep and stay up until dawn, waiting for the day to bring distraction.

            So they were busy, their lives were full, and they didn’t have a lot of time to worry about mundane things.

            And still, they found ways to drive each other mad.

            Without the buffer of others, Harry started to hate every time Ron started writing, because he would tap his quill against the inkwell incessantly. He wasn’t innocent—Ron had threatened more than once to hex Harry if he kept humming while he read, and after the first week they’d mutually decided that sharing a bathroom would be detrimental to their health.

            But these were small, miniscule problems. Ron performed a localized Muffliato to keep the tapping quiet, and Harry tried to keep his humming quiet. Kreacher was actually helpful in keeping the peace.

            “Master Harry and Mr. Weasley will find their work easier if they work together,” he reminded them both.

            And of course, they were friends, and they loved each other, and they were both working towards their dream jobs. It was just the stress of the war, and as fall began to turn to winter, they were calmer. Ron had learned to knit from Hermione, and he would knit by the fire and Harry would work on his photo album, organizing pictures of his family, from old snapshots to sketches done by Dean Thomas of the fallen and the survivors.

            The Auror trainees got a few weeks off for vacation (“the last vacation you’ll get, if you’re serious about this job”) near Christmas, and the girls were coming home soon. Ron and Harry were planning to spend Christmas itself at the Burrow, but they were going to throw a New Year’s party at Grimmauld Place.

            So Harry woke up on their first day of vacation, ready to have a few days off with his best friend.

            Then he looked over at Ron, and his heart sank. Ron was tossing and turning, his face flushed and sweat on his forehead. Harry went over to him hesitantly. Was it a nightmare?

            He reached out, and Ron’s eyes opened.

            “Harry?”

            “Ron, what is it?”

            “Tired. Nose is all—” Ron gestured feebly. “And I’m freezing.”

            Harry looked at the three blankets covering Ron, and the roaring fireplace.

            “I think you’ve got a cold, Ron.”

            Ron groaned.

            Harry cleared his throat. “Kreacher?”

            The house elf appeared immediately.

            “Ron’s sick,” Harry told him. “Do you have a thermometer, or anything like that?”

            Kreacher looked at him, confused.

            “To see what his temperature is, you know. To see if he has a fever.”

            “Ah.” Kreacher laid his long fingers against Ron’s forehead. “Yes, Mr. Weasley has a fever.”

            “I’ll get you some Pepper-Up Potion,” Harry told Ron. “Kreacher, can you stay with him?”

            Ron started coughing. Alarmed, Harry helped him sit up.

            “Won’t…help,” Ron managed between gasps. “Pepper’s for…for wizard colds. This doesn’t feel like one. That Muggle girl we interviewed last week had a cold. Must have caught a Muggle bug.”

            “They’re different?” Harry asked in disbelief.

            “Of course, Master Harry. Wizards have different immunities than Muggles, so they have different illnesses. A Muggle might not catch dragon pox, but they have cancer. Unfortunately, both kinds of people are susceptible to colds.”

            “Er, right.” Harry scratched his head. “I suppose I’d better get some Muggle medicine, then.”

            That idea worked until Harry opened the front door. The world had transformed into ice and snow overnight, and Harry could see a couple of their neighbours battling the wind as they shoveled.

            “Morning, Daniel,” Harry called.

            Daniel looked up. “Hello Harry.” How the Muggles rationalized Harry and Ron stepping out of a house that didn’t exist Harry would never know. “Do you and Ron want a shovel?”

            “No thanks. We might just stay in.”

            “Right. Not much use going out, everything’s closed from here to Birmingham. At least the kids are happy.”

            Harry’s heart sank. “Okay. Bye, Daniel.”

            He shut the door and went back upstairs. Kreacher was still hovering by Ron. Those two were also still quite awkward with each other, but Ron wasn’t actively curling away from him, so that was a start.

            “Everything’s closed because of the weather,” Harry announced. “And I don’t know how far to go and get something…”

            “S’alright, mate. Kreacher was explaining.”

            Harry looked at Kreacher.

            “Because Mr. Weasley is a pureblood wizard, he will be able to fight off the virus. Medicine would help, but the cold should not last more than twenty-four hours.”

            Relief flooded Harry. “Well, that’s brilliant. Could you bring some breakfast, Kreacher? I’ll help you, Ron.”

            As he dragged pillows off his own bed, Harry felt a stab of worry. A tired Ron was grumpy. A hungry Ron was downright snarky, edging onto nastiness. What was an ill Ron like?

            So far, an ill Ron was quiet. He sat up when Harry set up the pillows, and he made no protest when Harry helped him out of his sweaty pajamas.

            Harry Summoned a clean pair, but not before Ron started shaking again.

            “It’s going to be alright, Ron. You’ll be better soon, okay?”

            Ron just nodded. He shrank into the pillows and picked at the blankets.

            Kreacher reappeared with a bowl of oatmeal topped with berries, Ron’s favourite. “Do you require anything else, Master Harry?”

            “I think we’ll be okay,” Harry said, though he wasn’t sure at all. “I’ll call if I need you, go on to Hogwarts.” Kreacher spent most days helping the House Elves to fix the old castle, paid a Galleon a day.

            When Kreacher was gone with a crack Harry looked at Ron. “Do you want to play chess?”

            Ron shook his head. “Eyes are sore,” he muttered. “Just want to rest.”

            “Can you try and eat first?” Harry coaxed. “It’ll help.”

            To his amazement Ron complied, eating several spoonfuls of the oatmeal. Harry gave him two glasses of water to help get it down. He hovered, but wasn’t quite sure what to do once he’d taken the mostly-empty bowl and set it on the table.

            “You can go,” Ron said. “I’m just going to sleep.”

            Harry would have, but then he remembered something. 

_“Harry? It’s two in the morning.”_

_Harry jolted up. He’d gone into the drawing room, hoping he could stay awake in here and not bother Ron. Jaw clenched and eyes wide open—if he closed them he’d see it all again, he couldn’t bear it again—he was sitting on the sofa, staring determinedly at the empty cupboard._

_Sirius stood in the doorway._

_“Nightmare?”_

_Harry nodded jerkily, not trusting his voice._

_Sirius came and sat down next to him. “I’m sorry, Harry. I’d give you Dreamless Sleep potion if I could, but it stops working after a while. It’s addictive as hell, too. Your Mum was taking some for stress but when she found out she was pregnant she quit cold turkey and didn’t sleep a wink for three days. Drove your Dad spare.”_

_That almost made Harry smile, and then he remembered his mother’s voice in the graveyard, and he shuddered._

_“Sorry”, Sirius said quickly._

_Harry shrugged._

_“Do you want to talk about it?”_

_“You already know it,” Harry mumbled. “You heard it all the night—it’s just the graveyard, over and over again.”_

_Sirius put an arm around his shoulders. “Right, so talking won’t help.” He summoned a book. “You know, they don’t have books in Azkaban. I’ve missed them.”_

_“You like to read?”_

_“I love it when no one’s making me read dull rubbish.” Sirius held up the book. “Good rubbish, on the other hand…”_

_It looked like the romance novels Harry had seen Parvati Patil shove into her bag. “I’ve never read one.”_

_“This one’s not bad; I do want to know what happens to the characters which is the whole point of a story. Do you mind if I sit and read it a while? You can read along, if you like.”_

_Harry nodded, and Sirius opened the book. Harry’s eyes were aching with exhaustion, and he gave up trying to read along after two pages. He leaned his head against Sirius’ shoulder and closed his eyes._

_And soon, the dim light and the sound of pages slowly turning lulled him to sleep._

That gave Harry an idea.

            “I want to write my Christmas list,” he said. “I still haven’t figured out gift ideas for everyone. Can I lie here and do that?”

            “Aren’t you a bit old for Father Christmas?”

            “For other people,” Harry clarified, giving Ron a nudge. “Come on, shove over.”

            “I’m the ill one,” Ron protested, but he shifted enough so Harry could lie down next to him. Harry summoned a roll of parchment and a pen.

            “Then shush, and let me write.” Harry put the title in big letters: ‘Christmas List, because I can never remember anything.’

            As the quill scratched over the page, Harry could hear Ron’s breath slowing, getting deeper. When he started to snore, Harry wrote Ron’s name and put _spa certificates._ He kept writing as the afternoon wore on, even when he’d run through his Christmas list, and when Ron awoke a few hours later, his fever broken, he’d started doodling Quidditch scenes.

            And Christmas Day, Ron got his certificates and cheered. He also got a bottle of Muggle cough medicine.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope everyone enjoyed!   
> I'm going to be dividing my HP writing time in the next two weeks to the sequel and to Kith & Kin (reminder that I need and want prompts for Kith--any Harry Potter character that was still alive at the end of Deathly Hallows, or even ones that weren't, so I can write how they fit into the Fading Scars verse). In the mean time, if you like Supernatural there will be a couple of stories up for that!   
> Cheers,  
> Acme


End file.
